{"id":34338,"date":"2013-07-28T21:47:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T21:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=34338"},"modified":"2018-11-11T14:39:57","modified_gmt":"2018-11-11T22:39:57","slug":"townsend","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=34338","title":{"rendered":"Christine: Voice for the Silenced"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"08-04d-townsend\"<\/a>It has been three years since I first wrote about my idea for a Jonestown-related opera. As any reader of the jonestown report arts section knows, many people have already dreamed up artistic projects which examine and interpret Peoples Temple and Jonestown, and continue to do so now. This is a great thing, and I\u2019m proud to be in their company! The focus of my project is Christine Miller, the brave woman who spoke up on November 18, 1978, in a final effort to convince Jim Jones and her fellow residents that there was a better way than mass death to solve their predicament. Early parts of the opera will introduce Christine\u2019s independent streak, and summarize the lead-up to<\/p>\n

\"PT0728.Miller,Christine\"<\/a>
Photo courtesy of the
California Historical Society.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

November 1978 as seen through her eyes. The last act will focus entirely on the tragic day and will attempt to show Christine \u2013 and by extension, all the members there \u2013 rising above their physical circumstances and triumphing spiritually over the one who purported to lead them. Hold that thought!<\/p>\n

The project is moving ahead slowly but surely, but with much excitement for me. Alas, I only get a tiny amount of creative time each month, since several jobs leading choirs occupy most of my life. But now I\u2019m nearing completion of a chunk of the final scene, which I hope to use as bait for a full commission. Another great asset is my friend Tichina Vaughn (pictured at left), a wonderful mezzo active in Europe, who is equally turned on by the project, and for whom I\u2019m molding the title role.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to outline how progress is going so far on the final scene fragment, then consider a few of the interesting issues and dynamics that are emerging from it.<\/p>\n

Early on, I realized that a long, emotional scene like this required dramatic pacing that could be sustained only by trimming the text \u2013 in this case, transcripts of the so-called Death Tape \u2013 and also by portraying the huge contrasts of mood that prevailed that day. Nothing is still that afternoon: voices, emotions, actions, reactions, all shifted chaotically, without form or direction, charged by fear and confusion and adrenaline. Jones goes on multiple rants \u2013 mostly of the drug-addled variety \u2013 people are alternately reasonable, hysterical, fatalistic, angry, argumentative. Into this mix, Christine carefully chooses when to insert herself, showing a remarkably calm persistence. How does she try to convince the community? By rapid-firing an impressive array of arguments, most of them derived from Jones\u2019 own teachings.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m finding that the orchestra plays a central role in guiding the audience back and forth between the extreme Jim Jones energy and the more rational Christine energy. After one Jones outburst, the orchestra explodes, extending the feel of his misguided passions, before gradually subsiding to allow the violas and harp to emerge, which gently usher in Christine\u2019s quiet assertion that she\u2019s not afraid to die. Movingly \u2013 as ghostly music-box notes waft by \u2013 she evokes the unfairness of making the babies suffer for Jones\u2019 political agenda. Sensing the danger of letting the crowd digest this thought, Jones steers the conversation to their (allegedly) vain search for peace, in a soliloquy casting himself as a martyr for them. Christine, undaunted and more passionate now, argues that destroying themselves would only hand their enemies a victory.<\/p>\n

Again, sensing that he might lose control of the situation, Jones interrupts with a torrent of paranoia about how the military will invade them if they don\u2019t act now, a passage punctuated by volatile brass chords. Then Jim McElvane, one of Jones\u2019 lieutenants, chimes in saying that Christine should give up, that their fate is sealed. A gospel organ accompanies him, igniting another fiery wave of ecstasy for Jones to exploit. Once again, Christine waits until the wave has subsided, then pushes on, patiently insisting that each individual there owns her own destiny. Quiet pulsations in the strings and piano underscore her. After a woman in the crowd objects to this, Christine lays it on the line in an aria asserting her belief in Peoples Temple, that they must survive to reach their full potential.<\/p>\n

\"08-Perry\"<\/a>As all this is going on, another important element has emerged: the crowd, taking the form of a mixed chorus. I\u2019m fascinated by the reactions I hear on the Death Tape. Most of the people there agree with Jones, because, unfortunately, he had conditioned them to accept his words without question. But in Christine\u2019s strongest moments that day, there are eerie silences, suggesting that things could turn at any second. Even though no one there spoke up in support of her, it is well documented that many Temple members and Jonestown survivors did harbor doubts about Jones\u2019 leadership, even if they kept those doubts to themselves. In this sense I believe that Christine spoke as a proxy for all of them, including those who eventually shouted her down. How, then, to illustrate this in an opera? I\u2019ve decided to have the chorus echo certain words and phrases sung by both Jones and Christine, during their dialogue. After Jones asks if they\u2019ve gotten the peace they came there for, they sustain chords of \u201cNo\u201d under his next lines. When Christine sings of not letting the enemy defeat us, they echo her words in accompaniment. When Jones rages about an impending invasion, the crowd agrees. What\u2019s the point of this? To illustrate both their higher wisdom and the abject cruelty of Jones\u2019 manipulation.<\/p>\n

This is a crucial point: the people of Jonestown deserved so much better. They\u2019d come there to realize a shared vision of a just, equal, color-blind society, better than the world they\u2019d left behind. Instead, through no fault of their own, they were used by a megalomaniac for his own needs. When the crowd echoes Jones\u2019 words in this scene, I hear only a reflection of his cynical control tactics, against their will. When they echo Christine, I hear their repressed true consciences shining through, despite that control. Painful though this is to depict, I feel it must be depicted.<\/p>\n

Scholarship on the Jim\/Christine relationship, as well as the Death Tape itself, reveal a unique dynamic between them \u2013 competitive but also oddly affectionate. Things got tense sometimes, as illustrated by the infamous episode where he pulled a gun on her, but they also genuinely liked each other. I try to reflect this in the opera. Jones is knocked off his stride by her several times, and realizes he must turn the crowd against her. He knows that Christine\u2019s outspoken nature has made her unpopular in Jonestown, so it serves his needs to let her go on. Jones transfers her strength to his own advantage. He allows her to make her points, says it\u2019s her right to speak out, magnanimously praises her boldness, then has the crowd do the dirty work of losing patience with her. It is a disingenuous abuse of the trust that Christine and every other person there had placed in him, and it worked.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been very grateful to have several email conversations with survivors, and hope to have more as I keep working. In my correspondence with Don Beck, one theme that has emerged is the idea of misplaced trust. Nobody joined PT to commit suicide. They joined PT to create a better world. Early on, Jones personified that ideal. But at some point, things changed. As Don put it, \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of always re-affirming our trust, i.e., being mindful to check if our trust in a person or group is still justified. If so, keep on. If not, work to challenge to bring it back to something worthy of trust \u2026 or find a new person or group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don also gave me food for thought about the trust that PT members placed in each other: \u201cThe sense of community is what I miss and am reminded of when we see one another. We had it, and though the Temple \u2018died,\u2019 that sense of trust still continues as something I remember, feel and cherish. I think all of us who were in PT have a sense of that, even those who left.\u201d<\/p>\n

This faith in bedrock principles seems to have survived along with the people. To me, this is a powerful testimony. It suggests that those who did leave did so because of Jones\u2019 mis-leadership, not because they\u2019d lost sight of the uniquely personal meaning PT had for each of them. They did have their own destinies after all. Christine was right.<\/p>\n

Don once again: \u201cEven Christine, in searching for something else other than to die, assumes a faith in something that held us together. Something even Jones seemed to lose and be floundering in … something where in our not questioning him let him get lost in himself and lose sight of the community which had emerged through him. What he should have realized is that the rapport and trust he built in us stood better even than he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

I return to that thought I asked you to hold at the beginning of this piece: How will the citizens of Jonestown spiritually triumph over Jones in my opera? It\u2019s very important to me that the end have that feel. Exactly how to get there is still under construction. But this is what I know so far: The deaths are depicted symbolically, not realistically. Stylized slow-mo descents, maybe in shadow, a soft implosion thud for Jones\u2019 gun. No cries, no agony, though of course that did happen back then. As Christine reaches the ground, she is singing a spiritual we\u2019ve already associated with her earlier in the work. Eventually they\u2019re all singing it, even though \u201cdead.\u201d I\u2019d love to see the platform they\u2019re on rise above Jones, who is slumped in his chair, only dimly lit by residual light from his infamous sign, \u201cThose who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.\u201d Perhaps, as Don has suggested, I can evoke a vision of today\u2019s survivors continuing to manifest the good that came from Temple members. In fact, maybe the opera is bookended that way \u2013 starting and ending with survivors behind a scrim, paying tribute to their departed friends.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, well, I\u2019m still thinking about it.<\/p>\n

(Perry Townsend is a composer and choir director based in New York City. He can be reached at ptownsend@immerbox.com<\/a>. He would especially like to hear from anyone with ideas about possible spirituals to use in Christine\u2019s final scene. Ideally it should be a spiritual which was actually used in Peoples Temple services, and which would be somewhat familiar to a general audience.<\/em><\/p>\n

(A number of samples of Tichina Vaughn’s work can be found here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been three years since I first wrote about my idea for a Jonestown-related opera. As any reader of the jonestown report arts section knows, many people have already dreamed up artistic projects which examine and interpret Peoples Temple and Jonestown, and continue to do so now. This is a great thing, and I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":34357,"menu_order":38,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-34338","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34338"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84300,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34338\/revisions\/84300"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}